


Line Of Fire

by MilkTeaMiku



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Sleeping Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-16 23:44:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11263494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MilkTeaMiku/pseuds/MilkTeaMiku
Summary: “I’m just tired,” he said as he let out a deep exhale. It escaped his chest sounding worried and shaky. “Lance and Keith never stop arguing, and Hunk still doesn’t trust his own strength, and Pidge keeps getting ahead of himself with his modifications… I’m worried for them. All of them. They don’t seem like they know what they’re doing, and to be honest, I don’t, either. I’m just worried.”“I know,” she soothed. Her hands had found their usual place at the small of his back, a solid and prevailing steadiness. Sometimes, when he became like this, she’d make herself taller, and her hands would be larger, encompassing more of his back. It had frightened him the first time, put him on edge. Now it softened him. After a silent moment, she said, “You can hug me too, you know.”





	Line Of Fire

“I’m telling you, it’s better if we go in from around this way,” Shiro insisted, as he traced a line across the holo-map projected in between the inhabitants of the castle. “We won’t get detected as fast this way.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to rely on the Green Lion’s invisibility?” Hunk asked, nervous. He was fidgeting with his hands, being too expressive, something he did when he didn’t like where the conversation was going. Shiro felt a stab of sympathy for him, but it was washed away by the tense urgency in the room. No one wanted to back down from their opinions. 

Keith spun the map around to face him with a flick of his hand. It was the first time he’d unravelled his arms from being folded, and the change in stance was very noticeable. “We should just attack them straight on,” he said, “surprise them. If we form Voltron-”

“We should definitely not do that,” Lance interjected, flippantly waving a hand from the wrist. The heated glare Keith sent him was palpable. Those two were getting along better these days, but that shift in Lance’s attitude meant they were fighting, which in itself was a problem. When they got along, they got along _really_ well. When they were arguing, it was the opposite.

An exhausted furrow appeared between Shiro’s brows as he let out an aggravated sigh. Too many possibilities were running through his head, and each was fighting for the largest portion of his attention. He turned the map back towards him, how it had been before, and considered their options again. The Galra fleet had surrounded their target – a small planet with a loud distress beacon – on almost all sides, except at the back; they didn’t expect an attack from there. Galra ships were vulnerable from behind, especially with Voltron’s specialised power, so it made sense to sneak in and attack from the back. It was logical.

The other Paladins didn’t seem to know what logic meant at all.

“Princess?” He finally said, cutting through the squabbling of the other four pilots. Their noisy voices were almost as loud as the ones in his head. Almost. Allura and Coran were standing on a raised platform at the apex of the room, watching them with mixed expressions of disappointment, irritation and at least a little fondness. Shiro wished he could replicate their patient sentiments. “What do you think?”

“I agree with you,” Allura decided after a moment. Her voice silenced the room. “There’s no solid determination that Pidge’s invisibility can deceive the Galra’s scanners for extended periods of time, let alone make it all the way to the planet’s surface past the fleet. Attacking head-on is too reckless. We could damage the planet if the fight turns back in their direction. If we are going to attempt to land on the planet’s surface, then going in behind the fleet is our best chance. Then we can see what we’re working with from the ground.”

It was decided. No one would argue with Allura, not unless they wanted a heated debate with her. Sometimes the Paladins still doubted her authority, but lately that had been happening less and less. Especially when they’d been arguing a point for as long as they had then. No one would challenge her, not knowing how strong her words could be. Even Shiro wasn’t brave enough to attempt that.

“Alright, if that’s settled…” Allura paused, just to see if anyone had any final objections, but she was met with resigned silence. She reached forwards to turn off the map, bathing them in darkness only pierced by the light from the control panel. “You’re dismissed, everyone. We’ll figure out concrete details tomorrow morning. Shiro, if I can have a word?”

He was in the midst of turning away when she beckoned him over, but he only approached her when the other Paladins and Coran had left and the doors had hissed shut behind them. The privacy was a comfort.

Allura’s strong hands were impossibly gentle as she drew him closer, holding him by the waist. “You seem frustrated,” she said, as she glanced up at him with those bright eyes of hers. She’d switched from being Allura-the-leader to just Allura. “More than usual.”

“I’m just tired,” he said as he let out a deep exhale. It escaped his chest sounding worried and shaky. “Lance and Keith never stop arguing, and Hunk still doesn’t trust his own strength, and Pidge keeps getting ahead of himself with his modifications… I’m worried for them. All of them. They don’t seem like they know what they’re doing, and to be honest, I don’t, either. I’m just worried.”

“I know,” she soothed. Her hands had found their usual place at the small of his back, a solid and prevailing steadiness. Sometimes, when he became like this, she’d make herself taller, and her hands would be larger, encompassing more of his back. It had frightened him the first time, put him on edge. Now it softened him. After a silent moment, she said, “You can hug me too, you know.”

He startled, and hurried to comply. No one knew they were- were like _this,_ that they had this. That they were… whatever they were. He acted like the Black Paladin around the others, felt like it was a role he needed to fulfil for them, and thus he sometimes found it difficult to just be Shiro with her. He was always on edge, always standing straight, always hard-faced. He had to be strong and calm, he had to lead others, had to be their leader.

Sometimes he just wanted to be Shiro.

Sometimes it was hard to remember who that was.

It had taken him a while to get used to Allura’s affection. Alteans had different meanings for different actions, and their ways of showing affection were quite different from the ways affection was shown on Earth. It made sense when he thought about it: their bodies were different, so why wouldn’t their body language be different, too? He thought that their- whatever it was, was a complicated mix of the two, of Altean and Earthen comforts. Allura had learned how humans perceived affection from watching the Paladins, from asking Shiro, and from testing her theories on him. He struggled more than she did with the same problem.

But he thought that maybe she just liked to be with him, even if he struggled to be himself. They could only be like this in private, but it somehow made the moments sweeter. It was a learning process, but one that he secretly enjoyed. She made it enjoyable. 

“If you think the plan is too dangerous, we can revise it,” she offered.

He shook his head. “No, it’s a viable option. I think it’s the safest thing we’ve thought of. I’ll be worried either way.”

Her hands travelled up his back, keeping him close. He didn’t know how she figured out that he liked that, but she had. “I worry as well,” she said, her voice soft, “but I trust that my Paladins will return. Their leader is very capable, you know.”

A small smile touched his face. He pressed his nose against the crown of her head. Even though it had been a long day, she still managed to smell like her flower-sweet Altean shampoo. “If you say so,” he said, but it wasn’t unkindly. She told him things like that all the time, and although it wasn’t usually something that would get to him, from her it did. Even if Allura could be vulnerable and hesitant when she was alone with him, she was always sure of the things she said when it came to the Paladins and Voltron. She never lied. Never hid the truth. 

He wanted to believe her words more than he wanted to believe in his own abilities. 

“I wish I could do more for you,” Allura said quietly. “My Paladins are in the line of fire and I remain behind the castle’s defences. I’ve never experienced the pain I have when I hear you hurt. Any of you. I know it was out of my control, but knowing how you spent the last few years suffering…”

“That’s not your fault,” he said, as he put a hand to her face to tilt her chin up, “and you know it. There’s nothing you could have done – not for me, and not for anything else that went wrong in the last ten thousand years. Don’t blame yourself.”

“I know, but I cannot accept it,” Allura said. The weight of centuries of sleep was heavy in her voice. “But I won’t dwell on it. There are too many people relying on me for me to mourn the ones I was unable to help.”

It was a harsh way of thinking, but it was what they both needed. She’d long since been forced to overcome her anguish at what had happened, and he was proud of her for it. He pressed his lips to her forehead, and let himself linger for a moment. She was so brave and so strong when she had every right not to be. Maybe he could be the same. “We’ll move onwards,” he told her, like it was a promise. “We’ll move onwards and we won’t look back.”

A relieved smile passed over her lips. Maybe she believed in his words just as much as he believed in her words. “That sounds perfect to me.”

He rested his forehead against hers and let his shoulders sag. Allura had always been stronger than she looked, and she didn’t sway under his weight. With all the bad things that had happened after he first left Earth, finding her was not one of them. He’d never been the type of person to rely on others, never been the type of person to share his burdens. Allura made him feel like it was okay to do so, made them all feel that way. Somehow, she really made them feel like they weren’t alone, even when they were all so far away from home.

“I think you need a long night’s rest,” Allura whispered.

“I don’t know when I’ll get that,” he whispered back. If a sudden alarm or pressing Voltron matter didn’t wake him, then a nightmare would. And if a nightmare didn’t, then his worry over Lance’s homesickness, his concern for Keith’s isolating and rash habits, his fear for Pidge and Matt, or his anxiousness over Hunk’s anxiousness would. Who was to say he’d be able to close his eyes long enough to fall asleep in the first place?

“Come with me tonight,” she said. It took him a moment to realise it was a question and not an order; only her inquisitive eyes gave it away. She’d asked him the same thing countless times in the past, but he’d only agreed a small number of times.

He felt dirty, compared to her. He was just a pilot from Earth, an entire planet so far from Altea’s reach that it seemed newborn. She was a princess; beautiful, rare, the survivor of a race currently lost to them. What could he have that appealed to her? That was worthy of her affection? His mind pulled up no answers. Damaged goods did not go with precious gems.

That night, however, he felt weak. Pitiful. He gave in. “Alright,” he whispered.

She gave him a pleased smile. She’d told him she liked it when she had the company, and he knew she was hurt anytime he said no, but she wouldn’t push him, wouldn’t overstep his self-imposed boundaries. That night he didn’t say no.

Allura’s bedroom was located away from the Paladin rooms. He liked her room, but perhaps that was because it was hers, and not because of any architectural or aesthetic preferences, though he did enjoy those too. The room was dominated entirely by her bed – it was the only piece of furniture in the room aside from a vanity built into the wall and a matching seat. There were no decorations in the room, but a pair of big, shimmery curtains hanging from the ceiling offered her bed privacy from anyone walking in.

Most of the time she kept the curtains open, pulled back on either side of the room. When he stayed with her, she unclipped them, and pulled them out to separate the bed from the rest of the room.

He liked her bed too, though again, that was perhaps because she was the owner of it. The bed itself was larger than the ones the Paladins had, and was framed on all sides except the foot by huge panels. It looked like something out of a sci-fi movie, but then again, everything did. In the castle, it fit in; he himself didn’t. The bed was only out of place in his mind.

But he still liked it. The sheets smelt like her and the covers were soft and she had half a dozen pillows each half her size. The Paladins were given Altean clothes to sleep in – loose pants and short-sleeved shirts – and he changed and entered the bed before she did. He always did that. If she were in it, he felt like an intruder, and she had a night time routine much longer than his. He was relieved he’d already showered before the evening meeting had been called.

Allura joined him after changing and brushing her hair. She didn’t tie her thick locks up to sleep, and sometimes he woke up with them in his mouth, or loose strands clinging to his clothes, and he thought about them for the rest of the day. When she joined him in the bed that evening, she carefully brushed her hair back over her shoulders before laying her head on their shared pillow. 

“Are you sure you’re alright?” She asked.

She was asking about a lot of things, and he knew it. The plan, his concerns for the Paladins, his wellbeing, sleeping in her bed with her… for the time being, he really was okay with it. His nod relieved her. “I’m sorry if I-”

“I’ve already told you,” she whispered, interrupting him with a gentle hand on his cheek, “it’s okay. I don’t mind.”

He gave her a wane, weak smile. _I’m sorry if I wake you with my nightmares, or if I’m not here when you wake up in the morning._ “Sorry,” he said again. 

She laughed at this one, because it was an apology for an apology, and it was funny. “You’re a strange man, Shiro,” she declared. “I enjoy figuring you out.”

His face warmed. Allura was always so open with her enjoyment of things, and it caused his heart to beat to a flustered rhythm. “I enjoy you, too,” he said. It was an honest confession. 

She smiled at him. Her fingers were moving hair away from his forehead, and slowly travelled to the back of his head. Her nails gently scraped against the back of his skull. His eyes drooped. Her hands were warm, her skin was warm, her bed was warm. He could hear the mice scurrying along the covers, finding soft spaces for themselves between mountains of pillows and silvery hair. Sometimes he woke up with one resting against the hollow between his throat and shoulder, or tucked underneath his open fingers in an outstretched hand. Their acceptance of him in their domain with their princess was oddly comforting.

“Try to sleep well, Shiro,” Allura whispered. Half-asleep, he barely heard her. She leaned closer, the covers shifting, and pressed her lips against his forehead. A lock of hair tickled his cheek. The kiss made him pleasantly sleepy. She laid back down beside him and spent a long moment adjusting the sheets to her preference, pulling them over his shoulders and encompassing them in warmth that the mice sought to steal.

“I love you,” he whispered, voice raspy. “Allura, I love you.”

“Shh,” she hushed him. Her hand returned to the back of his head, holding him steady. “I know, Shiro. I love you too.”

He leaned into her touch. Maybe tonight, sleep wouldn’t evade him.

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr](http://milkteamiku.tumblr.com/)   
>  [my twitter](https://twitter.com/fairydens)   
> 


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